“I hate when people say ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ ” I said. “It’s as bad as saying, ‘Don’t give up hope.’ You either hope or you don’t, but you don’t adjust yourself like a toaster oven.”
Joey clicked her key at the BMW. “I’ll tell you what he hopes. Cziemanski’s hoping for a reason to call you, because that cop likes you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“His name’s Peter. I read his reports upside down. He’ll ask you to call him Pete.”
“I’m not calling him Pete. I’m immune to-I’m still recovering from-”
“Doc. I know. But consider this: all we need for Cziemanski to work Annika’s case is one or two suspects. So first we hand him the boyfriend-cops always suspect the spouse or the lover. Then we offer an alternate: Marty Au Pair. Give me a minute, I’ll make up something incriminating about him.”
“I’m all for finding the boyfriend,” I said. “But you’re wrong, Joey. It’s not suspects Cziemanski wants, it’s a crime. Dollars to doughnuts, nobody’s going to care about Annika Glück until we come up with a dead body.”
7
If there’s anything trickier than finding a missing person, it’s finding the boyfriend of the missing person when all you have to go on is “Rico.”
We called Annika’s mother from Joey’s car, on the 101 freeway. It was three P.M. in L.A., midnight in Germany, but I figured Mrs. Glück wouldn’t be sleeping well, and I was right. All she could tell us about Rico, though, whose last name she didn’t know, was that he was a “goat boy.” There aren’t a lot of goats that need tending in Southern California, so I decided she meant “good boy.” I told her I’d call when I had news, and hung up before her lamentations could put me over the edge. I was worrying quite well on my own.
I tried Maizie Quinn, on the chance that she’d recalled Rico’s last name. A human answered-Lupe, the housekeeper, who said Mrs. Quinn was at her sushi class. When I hung up, my phone rang. I answered it and was met with silence, the kind that signals a telemarketer about to take a stab at your name. Did telemarketers call cell phones? “Hello,” I repeated.
“Wollie Shelley?”
“Yes.”
“Just checking.”
That was the whole conversation. I said hello again, then did something I must’ve picked up from the movies: I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it.
“What?” Joey said. “Who was it?”
“No idea.” I shook my head, disoriented. An electrical current of sorts was running through me, shaking me up despite the prosaic nature of the words. It jogged my memory. “Wait, I’ve got it. His last name. It’s Feynman.”
“Annika’s boyfriend?” Joey said. “Rico Feynman?”
“Well, she called him Richard. It was after one of our tutorials. We were at the coffee bar, and I was going to walk her to her car, but she was going to wait around, she had a date. I said, ‘A nice guy, I hope?’ Because we’d been talking about our tendency to fall for the wrong kind of guy, and she told me not to worry, this one was a fine man. Literally. That was his last name. Feynman. She spelled it out.”
“Did you meet him?”
“No,” I said. “I walked by the coffee bar an hour later and looked in the window. She was reading a book. I wondered if he’d stood her up. Did Annika ever talk about this guy to you?”
Joey took the Laurel Canyon exit south, toward L.A. “No, but I know she brought him to the set to visit. I heard Savannah talk about him. Did I tell you, Elliot and Larry want me on the set every night from now on? Like my presence will improve ratings. The only thing that will improve our ratings is Elvis showing up as a guest expert. Sorry. Is Elvis a sensitive topic? I saw you crying in the grocery store when ‘Suspicious Minds’ was on the Muzak.”
“No. That was just-Fritos. I used to buy them for Ruby; they’re hard to get in Japan.”
I missed twelve-year-old Ruby with a persistence that surprised me. I wondered if that’s why I was reacting so strongly to Annika’s disappearance-she’d filled that place left empty by Ruby. I missed Doc, too, but in a different way. It was no longer like an ice pick through my heart to think about the hundred or so sexual encounters with my ex-fiancé. Sometimes I had to work to recall the sound of his laugh, the way his hands looked on a steering wheel, the feel of his beard stubble against my face. I had no erotic stirrings for anyone else, though, let alone that rampant libidinous hunger, where you fantasize about the NBA, or random heads of state on the front page of the paper, or the checkout clerks at Costco.
Yet. Fredreeq said it would happen again. Joey too. That’s what friends do, they keep a grasp on reality when you’re stuck down some emotional rabbit hole…
“Joey,” I said. “Annika might not’ve talked to us about Rico, but she talked to friends her own age. The other au pairs. Glenda, the counselor, even complained about it.”
“Do you know their names?”
I racked my brain. Berta? “One took care of twins,” I said. “That’s all I remember. And I can’t ask Glenda-she was very nervous talking to me at all. She kept saying she was a volunteer, as if that were some neurological problem.”
“I’ll get her talking,” Joey said. “Tell me about her.”
Minutes later Joey was calling Williams-Sonoma, doing what she called gagging, impersonating someone on the phone. She adopted a British accent. “Ms. Nacy? I’m Caroline Maxwell-Grace, with the Department of State in Washington. Your name was mentioned by Martin Otis of Au Pairs par Excellence as an Outstanding Community Counselor… Yes… So we’re adding you to our list of national finalists, one of whom we’ll honor with a-an honorarium.” Joey slammed on the brakes, honking at a car coming to a sudden stop at Mulholland. “At a banquet. Attended by the secretary of state… Pardon?… Funny how many Americans don’t know the secretary of state.” Joey turned to me, her face a plea.
I went blank. The secretary of state? I shook my head at her.
“As Henry Kissinger used to say, Beg pardon?” Joey looked at me again, eyebrows raised. “Cappuccino machine? I’m sorry, I already-ah. Aha…” Glenda’s voice could be heard chirping away. The car ahead of us inched forward. We inched too. Joey said, “Safe to talk now? Right-oh. I do apologize for calling your work. Now: we’re sending a field agent to California to gather testimonials, so which of your host families would you prefer us to interview? I understand there are three assigned to you…”
Horns honked on Laurel Canyon, angered by the standstill. “Mr. Otis does authorize you to make this decision, or he would not have had us-” Outside my window, a convertible was creating a new lane on the shoulder of the road. “By all means, confer with him, but my problem is, further delay may prevent my field agent reaching your people. You know what let’s do? I’ll order a cappuccino machine for my office staff. As you write up the order, think about which of your host families we should speak with. How does that sound?”
I rummaged through Joey’s bag for a credit card, and handed it over as Joey made up an address for the State Department. She repeated names and neighborhoods and thanked Glenda, ending the call. “She doesn’t have the numbers on her,” Joey told me. “We’ll try information. If they’re not listed, we’ll just have to bludgeon Marty Otis for them.”
In San Marino there was a listing for R. Dobbler. After a fast phone call and an illegal U-turn, we were headed back to the Ventura Freeway.
San Marino street sweepers run a tight ship: no fallen leaf was allowed to loiter in the stately, silent residential neighborhood. “Is the whole town like this?” I asked.
“Smug wealth?” Joey nodded. “What do these people do? That’s what I want to know. Back in Nebraska, there’s money, but everyone knows where it comes from. You drive down a street like this, you say, That guy’s chief of staff at Saint Elizabeth’s, that family owns five car dealerships… Even Beverly Hills, you can point to a house and say Lethal Weapons Seven, Eight and Nine bought that. Here, who knows? They must commute to L.A., right? There can’t be enough business here to support this.”